


Kindred Spirits

by madame_faust



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fluff, Gen, this is pure treacle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 19:18:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a rest in the journey, Bilbo and Bifur find common ground over a shared history of wood carving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kindred Spirits

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no profit from this story.
> 
> I think one of the companion books for the film mentioned that the 'Ur family would be making toys to finance the quest (is that not the most adorable thing you've ever heard?) so that's where the inspiration for this comes from. That and the fact that Bifur needs more love! So, Bifur fangirls (I know you're out there!) this one's for you! Also, one note - when Bifur is talking to Bilbo he is most emphatically NOT using iglishmêk until the very end. Dwarves are secretive about their languages and anyway, not all iglishmêk signs look like what they stand for, so he's just miming to Bilbo for the most part. This one is so sweet you'll need fillings.

The Company were resting in bright little meadow, a rare moment of respite on their journey. Bilbo was surprised by the abrupt stop in the middle of the day, but he was not going to complain about his good fortune. Most of his traveling companions set about making minor repairs to their arms or clothes, but Bifur, Bombur and Bofur removed whittling knives and blocks of wood from their bags and set to carving.

Bofur was one of the friendlier of the Company, he was warm, like Balin, but a mite less formal in his address. More like Fíli and Kíli, but without as wide a streak of mischief as the younger members of the Company boasted. It was difficult to know when the pair was teasing or serious, so when Bilbo asked the elder sibling what the three dwarves were doing, he did not immediately believe him when they said they were making toys.

“Toys?” the hobbit repeated skeptically. What use did thirteen grown (or nearly grown) Dwarves have for toys?

“Sure,” Fíli answered. “To sell or trade if our provisions get low. There’s a few towns we’ll pass through that don’t turn their noses up at our craftsmen.”

“Don’t your people have toys?” Kíli inquired, a disturbed look about his face. If Hobbits did not know what toys were, he felt sore sorry for the little ones in the Shire who had nothing to amuse themselves.

Bilbo laughed, “Of course we have toys - I step on them often enough! They’re forever being left in the road, in the garden - in _my_ garden, so there’s a constant trail of fauntlings knocking on my door or hopping over my fence to fetch them.” Looking at the three dwarves, so intent upon their work, he added, “I’d have thought the only toys Dwarf children played with were swords and arrows.”

“Well, there’s that,” Kíli agreed. “But we have other ways of making fun - matter of fact, we had some toys off of Bifur when we were dwarflings, didn’t we?”

“Aye,” his brother nodded. “Best around. We’re going for a swim, want to come?”

Bilbo thanked the golden-haired Dwarf for the offer, but declined. He was no strong swimmer and the exercise would probably lead to his near-drowning and the brothers laughing about it. Thorin would look upon him with scorn and say something cruel and then Balin would pat him on the arm or else Bofur would say something completely unrelated to the situation designed to make him smile, but Bilbo would still feel poorly in the end. He was no soothsayer, but he felt he’d spent enough time among the Dwarves to predict how this would go and he thought it best to avoid the whole sorry situation.

Instead, he edged near the carvers and took a seat between Bifur and Bofur when the latter noticed him and scooted closer to Bombur to free up a patch of grass. Bombur’s hand slipped suddenly and he cut himself, cursing in some gutteral language Bilbo assumed was the Dwarves’ native tongue.

“Hey, little brother, watch your language around our burglar!” Bofur reproached him, though he got up and walked around to inspect the damage he’d done himself.

Bombur inclined his head, “Sorry, Bilbo,” he apologized, though the hobbit was not at all offended, given that he couldn’t understand a word of what the Dwarf said. “Not too deep, I’ll just wrap it up.” He hauled himself to his feet, tutting, “It’s what comes of working with dull knives.”

“I’ve got an extra...somewheres,” Bofur said, following along after Bombur. “If I can find it, it’s yours.” And the brothers walked off together, leaving Bilbo alone with their cousin.

Of all the Dwarves, it was Bifur he felt the least comfortable with. Sometimes he caught the Dwarves speaking with him in that odd tongue Bombur just used, but they stopped when they noticed him approaching. Bifur never said a word to him. Naturally, Bilbo could not help but notice the rather prominent axe sticking out of his head and he assumed the Dwarf’s silence was due to the injury, but it was still an uncomfortable thing to pass time with one who would not speak to you. He was about to leave him to himself, but he was distracted by Bifur’s hands, which never stopped moving even when he looked anxiously at his injured cousin.

Hobbits were reckoned to be deft hands at wood carving, but Bilbo had never seen such skill and precision - all carried off so quickly! - as he witnessed from Bifur. He never dreamed dwarves were interested in anything that didn’t involve jewels or bloodshed as an outcome of their labors, but the ability with which Bifur wielded his whittling knife spoke of years spent honing his craft.

“That’s amazing,” Bilbo commented without meaning to. The dwarf looked at him out of the corner of his eye and the hobbit, rather than shutting his mouth and letting him continue on in peace, found himself spewing more praise. “That’s - that’s a horse, isn’t it? I can make it out already, the shape of the head and neck and...sorry, I’ll keep quiet.”

The Dwarf shook his head and pointed to the figurine in his hands with the blade of his knife. Then he gestured to the ponies nearby, munching on grass, and back to the figure he was carving.

“It is a horse, then?” Bilbo replied, relieved that he did not seem to be bothering Bifur at all with his commentary. “Well, of course it is! You’re quite good, I carved a rose in the back of a chair once...or ah, I tried to. I wanted to decorate it for my mother’s birthday, but it wound up looking more like a cabbage. My father was very angry, the chair was an antique and he said that it might have been fine if the carving looked like anything, but added cabbages as decorations? As you can imagine, I was rather upset - not that I don’t see his point, it was a perfectly fine chair before I went scratching - but, erm, I was young and wanted to please my mother.”

The Dwarf was staring at him and Bilbo thought he talked on too long or maybe he was having one of those moments when he looked at something, but did not seem to really _see_. That happened once or twice that Bilbo noticed, usually Bombur or Bofur would keep a closer eye on him until he was back to himself. Yet that did not seem to be the case for the other dwarf gestured at Bilbo and then positioned his arms and moved them as if he was rocking an infant to sleep.

“My mother?” Bilbo guessed and Bifur nodded. “What did she think? Actually...actually, do you know, she said she liked it. She said she thought it was the loveliest thing she’d ever seen and there _were_ flowers that looked just like that. The next spring she planted cabbage roses in our garden. They were much prettier than my carving, but I suppose they looked...sort of similar. If you weren’t looking very closely. I was never great shakes at carving, though many of my family are. Have you been doing this long?”

Bifur nodded and the hobbit felt that must have been a rather stupid question. One did not produce work of such quality having just taken up a knife hours before! That, he knew from experience, only ruined chairs for the cause of misshapen cabbages. “Carving toys was always meant to be your profession, then?”

The dwarf shook his head at that and mimed using a pick. It took Bilbo only a moment to ascertain his meaning. “You used to be a miner, like your...erm, cousins, is it?” Keep the Dwarves and their relationships to one another was tricky, but he got this one right because Bifur nodded and smiled at Bofur and Bombur who were starting to make their way back toward them. He lay the half-carved horse in the grass and put his hand flat out away from him as if signalling a halt.

“You stopped,” Bilbo said slowly, eyes going wide in comprehension when Bifur gestured to the axe in his head. “Oh! You stopped because of the...ah. Yes. I see. Do you like making toys better or...?”

Bifur paused, considering the question. What Bilbo did not know was that the ready money he made in his work as a miner fed his young cousins after their parents died far too young and he took them under his own care. That when he’d been unable to work immediately following his injury, there'd been nights when all three of them had to go without food. Worst was the day after he was recovered, when he found couldn’t abide the hours spent belowground and in darkness as easily as once he did, resulting in the loss of his situation. They were rather badly off for a while, until Bofur was able to take up his position, years younger than Bifur himself was when he first went to work. In that way he missed the mines. But he could not deny he preferred carving and he liked seeing the smiles on the faces of the little lads and lassies whose parents bought his toys for a treat. In good years, it brought in enough coin to keep them. Once Bombur and his wife set to work on their brood, he was assured of an appreciative audience for his work for years to come.

He picked up the pony and held it to his heart, looking the halfling meaningfully in the eyes. Bifur saw that Bilbo understood. Smiling, he nodded toward the pony and said, “Whoever buys that will be lucky indeed. When the craftsman really loves his work, you can...tell. It makes it special. That’s what my mother said, anyway. I think she was right.”

Bofur and Bombur returned and went back to work, chatting and joking as was their wont and Bilbo passed the rest of the afternoon, mostly listening, but sometimes joining in with his own stories and they rejoined the others when it was time for Bombur to get dinner ready. Bilbo decided to help handing out bowls and silverware for the company. Bifur was the last one who approached him and as he took his bowl, he held something in his other hand out to Bilbo.

“You’ve finished the pony?” Bilbo asked rhetorically, holding it up so that he could see it better in the firelight. “It’s lovely! D’you know, it looks just like Myrtle.” The Dwarf painted it a brown color, there was something fierce about the narrow eyes that did not match his normally sedate pony, but it was like his mount in every other particular.

When the halfling tried to hand it back, Bifur shook his head, putting one of his larger, rougher hands over Bilbo’s more delicately boned one and curled his white fingers around the small figure. “For me?” Bilbo asked, disbelieving. “Oh, I’d...I love it, I do, but I haven’t anything to give you for it.”

Again Bifur shook his head and, tucking his bowl under his arm, moved his hands in a way that was completely incomprehensible to Bilbo. Bombur noticed and understood. His eyes went a little wide, but he stepped between his cousin and the hobbit and translated, “He’s saying it’s yours to keep. As gift. From one carver to another.” Smiling broadly, he added, “My cousin’s always had a generous heart.”

Bilbo could not but agree. “Thank you, sir, thank you very much,” he said, tucking the little pony into his coat pocket. “I’ll treasure it always.”

Bifur reached out and patted Bilbo on the arm and went off to eat his supper with the other members of the Company. Now, when the hobbit felt overwhelmed and out of place among the Dwarves, he would remember the little carved pony in his pocket and be comforted to know that he had a kindred spirit among them.


End file.
